Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company behind our beloved PlayStation has laid off 900 workers from its global workforce. The layoffs include at several high-profile PlayStation Studios including Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, Guerrilla and Firesprite.
The news was reported earlier today by games journalist Jason Schrier from Bloomberg, who tweeted the news.
Shortly after the Bloomberg article, PlayStation Studios head posted to the corporate blog on Sony Interactive Entertainment’s website with “An important update from PlayStation Studios.” In the SIE article, Hulst states that Sony Interactive Entertainment has “initiated a reduction in our workforce – including within PlayStation Studios.”
Among the PlayStation Studios affected by the massive layoffs are Spider-Man 2 and WOlverine developer Insomniac Games and The Last of Us Part 2 developer Naughty Dog. Studios based in the UK and Europe facing redundancies include Firespirte and Guerrilla games while Blood and Truth developer London Studio is to close completely.
“PlayStation 5 is in its fourth year, and we are at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs,” Hulst said.
Games cancelled
Hulst also said that some projects that were in development have now been cancelled. “We looked at our studios and our portfolio, evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward.”
In his Bloomberg article, Jason Schrier says that a Twisted Metal live service was one of the games to have development stopped. The Twisted Metal game was in development at Firesprite which took over development from Lucid Games.
2024 has seen huge layoffs across the entire gaming industry with many developers having to cut staff and some studios closing altogether.
In some more positive PlayStation news, it has been claimed that third-party publishers have been given a presentation on the PS5 Pro. And Helldivers 2 has climbed to second place in the UK PS5 boxed chart.
